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World

Dutch vote in Covid-dominated election

  • The Netherlands, with a population of around 17 million people, has so far recorded around 1.1 million coronavirus cases with 16,000 deaths.
Published March 15, 2021

THE HAGUE: The Netherlands began three days of voting Monday in one of the first major tests of a European government's coronavirus policies, with Prime Minister Mark Rutte expected to win another term in office.

With the country still under tight restrictions, some polling stations are open on Monday and Tuesday to give at-risk people a chance to cast their ballots without crowding, ahead of the main voting day Wednesday.

Rutte -- in power since 2010 and one of Europe's longest-serving leaders -- is expected to emerge as head of his fourth coalition government owing to his steady handling of the pandemic.

The virus has drowned out previously dominant issues such as immigration, and opinion polls show Rutte's liberal VVD (People's Party for Freedom and Democracy) party with around 25 percent of the vote.

But there is also dissatisfaction, with police using water cannon to break up an anti-Rutte protest on Sunday, and riots against the introduction of a night-time curfew in January.

"A lot of people think 'leave Mr Rutte to finish the job' and that's perhaps a good idea, but he has to leave after that," language teacher Lies Eisma, 72, told AFP after voting.

"We've seen him for long enough and I am not in agreement with all his measures, and especially not with solving all the problems that we have now in the Netherlands. Those he simply let slide."

Voters turned out to cast their ballots places including a miniature theme park in The Hague, key railway stations, and a polling centre next to a coronavirus testing facility in a Rotterdam stadium.

Dutch authorities have urged the elderly and those who are vulnerable to coronavirus to vote early, with many people including party leaders set to vote on Wednesday when all polling stations will be open.

Exceptions to the 9:00 pm to 4:30 am curfew will be made over the next three days so people can vote "without hindrance", Rutte said last week.

"I am actually quite happy I could vote on a day like today because I do want to avoid busy places with these circumstances," trainee teacher Wilco Jacobs, 23, said in The Hague.

"I am personally slightly at risk because I am already obese and I do have somewhat weaker lungs."

Dubbed the "Teflon" premier for emerging unscathed from crises, Rutte recently shrugged off the fact that he had to resign in January over a scandal in which thousands of parents were falsely accused of scamming childcare.

He has since continued in a caretaker role.

Rutte initially embraced a lax anti-virus policy, but has since drastically toughened up, notably introducing the first nationwide curfew since World War II.

The Netherlands, with a population of around 17 million people, has so far recorded around 1.1 million coronavirus cases with 16,000 deaths.

Opinion polls, however, show Rutte far ahead of his closest rival, the anti-Islam PVV (Freedom Party) of Geert Wilders, which is on around 13 percent, making it likely to remain the second-biggest party in parliament.

"It seems that right-wing voters really like the VVD and Rutte or particularly actually the prime minister," Andre Krouwel, who teaches political science at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, told AFP.

"So they're getting not only what we call the 'prime minister bonus', that being in the office of prime minister provides, but also the 'corona bonus', because he was the spokesman during the pandemic.".

Rutte's coalition partners, the conservative Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) and Christian Union, are vying for third place in the election, meaning they could likely return to government too.

But with a large group of others including the Greens (GroenLinks) not far behind, the shape of any eventual coalition remains uncertain -- and after the last elections in 2017 coalition talks took seven months.

The vote will be closely watched in Europe, as Rutte is an influential, if not always popular figure in European politics due to his frugal stance on EU spending.

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